brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done! Pro. Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, There's no harm done. Mira. Pro. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, Mira. More to know Did never meddie4 with my thoughts. Pro. 'Tis time I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magick garment from me.-So: [Lays down his mantle. Lie there, my art.5-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd I have with such provision in mine art By foul play, as thou say'st, where we heav'd thence; But blessedly holp hither. Mira. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen" that I have turned you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you further. Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd AntonioI pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself, Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put The manage of my state; as, at that time, Through all the signiories it was the first, And Prospero the prime duke; being so In dignity, and, for the liberal arts, Without a parallel; those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother, reputed And to my state grew stranger, being transported, And wrapped in secret studies. Thy false uncleDost thou attend me? Mira. Sir, most heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate 1 i. e. or ever, ere ever; signifying, in modern English, sooner than at any time. 2 Instead of freighting the first folio reads fraughting. 3 The double superlative is in frequent use among our elder writers. 4 To meddle, is to mix, or to interfere with. 5 Lord Burleigh, when he put off his gown at night, used to say "Lie there, Lord Treasurer."-Fuller's Holy State, p. 257. 6 Out is used for entirely, quite. Thus in Act iv: "And be a boy right out." 7 Abysm was the old mode of spelling abyss; from its French original abisme. 8 Teen is grief, sorrow. 9 To trash means to check the pace or progress of any one. The term is said to be still in use among sportsmen in the North, and signifies to correct a dog for misbehaviour in pursuing the game; or overtopping or outrunning the rest of the pack. Trashes are clogs strapped round the neck of a dog to prevent his overspeed. Todd has given four instances from Hammond's works of the word in this sense. "Clog and trash"-" en To closeness, and the bettering of my mind cumber and trash"-" to trash or overslow"-and "foreslowed and trashed." There was another word of the same kind used in Falconry (from whence Shakspeare very frequently draws his similies ;) "Trassing is when a hawk raises aloft any fowl, and soaring with it, at length. descends therewith to the ground."-Dictionarium Rusticum, 1704. Probably this term is used by Chapman in his ad dress to the reader prefixed to his translation of Homer "That whosesoever muse dares use her wing, When his muse flies she will be trass't by his, And show as if a Bernacle should spring Beneath an Eagle." There is also a passage in the Bonduca of Beaumon But not so fast; your jewel had been lost then, i. e. checked or stopped my flight. I rather think it will be found that the Editors have been very precipitate in changing trace to trash in Othello, Act ii. Scene 1. See note on that passage. 1) Alluding to the observation that a father above the As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution, Mira. Your ale, sir, would cure deafness. Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd And him he play'd it for, he needs will be Pro. By Providence divine. Out of his charity, (who being then appointed Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me, Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then From my own library, with volumes that tell me, If this might be a brother. Mira. Pro. The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, Mira. Alack, for pity! 1, not rememb'ring how I cried out then, That wrings mine eyes to't. Hear a little further, That hour destroy us? Pro. Wherefore did they not Well demanded, wench; My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not; (So dear the love my people bore me) nor set Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd common rate of men has generally a son below it. Heroum filii note. 1 Who having made his memory such a sinner to truth as to credit his own lie by telling of it." 2 Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, has clearly wn that we use one word, But, in modern English, .or two words Bot and But, originally (in the Anglo Saxon) very different in signification, though (by repeated abbreviation and corruption) approaching in sound. Bot is the imperative of the A. S. Botan, to boot. But is the imperative of the A. S. Be-utan, to be out. By this means all the seemingly anomalous uses of But may be explained; I must however content myself with referring the reader to the Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 190. Merely remarking that but (as distinguished from Bot) and be-out have exactly the same meaning, viz in modern English, without. 3 In lieu of the premises; that is, "in consideration of the premises, &c." This seems to us a strange use of this French word, yet it was not then unusual. "But takes their oaths in lieu of her assistance." Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess. I prize above my dukedom. Mira. But ever see that man! Pro. "Would I mig at Now I arise: Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Mira. Heavens thank you for't! And now pray you, sir, (For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason A most auspicious star; whose influence Enter ARIEL. Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, Pro. 4 Hint is here for cause or subject. Thus in a future passage we have:-" Our hint of woe." 5 Quit was commonly used for quitted. 6 To deck, or deg, is still used in the northern counties for to sprinkle. 7 An undergoing stomach is a stubborn resolution a temper or frame of mind to bear. 8 This is imitated in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess; And bring thee coral, making way 9 Ariel's quality is not his confederates, but the powers of his nature as a spirit, his qualification in sprighting 10 i. e. to the minutest article, literally from the French a point, so in the Chances, "are you all fit?, To point, Sir " Why, that's my spirit! Pro. Close by, my master. Not a hair perish'd; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than be ore and as thou bad'st me, In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle: The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs, In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot. Pro. Of the king's ship, The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd, And all the rest o' the fleet? Ari. Safely in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd, Pro. Ariel, thy charge Exactly is performed; but there's more work: What is the time o' the day? Ari. Past the mid season. Pro. Dost thou forget No. From what a torment I did free thee? Pro. Thou dost; and thunk'st it much, to tread the ooze Of the salt deep;— To run upon the sharp wind of the north; I do not, sir. The foul witch, Sycorax, who, with age and envy, Thou hast where was she born? speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Árgier." Pro. O, was she so? I must, Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did, They would not take her life: Is not this true? Ari. Ay, sir. Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, A dozen years; within which space she died, groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island, (Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honoured with Ari. To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Ari. Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins4 As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging Cal. first, Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st give me Water with berries in't; and teach me how The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fer tile; Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! Which first was mine own king: and here you sty Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison. Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse: The red plague ride you, For learning me your language! Pro. Hag-seed, hence! Cal. No, 'pray thee! I must obey: his art is of such power, Pro. [Ande. So, slave; hence! It sounds no more ;--and sure, it waits upon had different allotments of time suitable to the variety and nature of their agency. 6 Destroy. 7 The word aches is evidently a dissyllable here and in two passages of Timon of Athens. The reader will remember the senseless clamour that was raised against Kemble for his adherence to the text of Shakspeare in thus pronouncing it as the measure requires. "Ake," says Baret in his Alvearie, "is the verb of this substan 4 Urchins were fairies of a particular class. Hedgehogs were also called urchins; and it is probable that the sprites were so named, because they were of a mis-tive Ache, ch being turned into k." And that ache was chievous kind, the urchin being anciently deemed a very noxious animal. Shakspeare again mentions these fairy beings in the Merry Wives of Windsor. "Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies green and white." In the phrase still current, "a little urchin," the idea of the fairy still remains. 5 That rust of night is that space of night. So, in Hamlet: pronounced in the same way as the letter h is placed beyond doubt by the passage in Much Ado about Nothing, in which Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries Heigh ho, and she answers for an h. i.e. ache. See the Epigram of Heywood adduced in illustration of that passage. This orthography and pronunciation continued even to the times of Butler and Swift. It would be easy to produce numerous instances. "In the dead waste and middle of the night," nor rasta, midnight, when all things are quiet and still, making the world appear one great uninhabited waste.-Eden's Hist. of Travayle, 1577. p. 434 La the pneumatology of ancient times visionary beings 9 Still, silent 9" The giants when they found themselves fettered roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them " Mira. Why speaks my father so ungently? This Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first That e'er I sighed for: pity move my father To be inclin'd my way! 1 i. e. owns. To owe was to possess or appertain to, in ancient language. 2 The folio of 1685 reads made, and many of the modern editors have laboured to persuade themselves that it was the true reading. It has been justly observed by M. Mason that the question is "whether our readers will adopt a natural and simple expression, which requires no comment, or one which the ingenuity of many cominentators has but imperfectly supported." 3 To control here signifies to confute, to contradict unanswerably. The ancient meaning of control was to check or exhibit a contrary account, from the old French contre-roller. 4" -you have done yourself some wrong:" Soft, sir; one word more.They are both in either's powers: but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning [Aside. Make the prize light.-One word more; I charge thee, That thou attend me: thou dost here usurp The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself Upon this island, as a spy, to win it From Fer. me, the lord on't." No, as I am a man. Mira. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a If the ill spirit have so fair an house, temple: Good things will strive to dwell with 't. Pro. Follow me.-[To FERD. Speak not you for him; he's a traitor.-Come. manacle thy neck and feet together; Sea-water shalt thou drink, thy food shall be The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks Wherein the acorn cradled: Follow. I Fer. will resist such entertainment, till Mine enemy has more power. Mira. No; [He draus. O dear father, Make not too rash a trial of him, for He's gentle, and not fearful." Pro. What, I say, My foot my tutor !--Put thy sword up, traitor; Who mak'st a show, but dar'st not strike, thy con science Is so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward Mira. Beseech you, father! Pro. Hence; hang not on my garments. Mira. Sir, have pity; I'll be his surety. Pro. Silence: one word more Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What! Thou think'st there are no more such shapes as he, Mira. Pro. that is, spoken a falsehood. Thus in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "This is not well, master Ford, this wrongs you." 5 Fearful was sometimes used in the sense of formidable, terrible, dreadful, like the French epourantubie; as may be seen by consulting Cotgrave or any of our old dictionaries. Shakspeare almost always uses it in this sense. In K. Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 2, "A mighty and a fearful head they are." He has also fearful wars; fearful bravery; &c. &c. most commonly used for to fright, to terrify, to make The verb to fear is afraid. Mr. Gifford remarks, "as a proof how little our old dramatists were understood at the Restoration, that Dryden censures Jonson for an improper use of this word, the sense of which he altogether mistakes." |